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LGBT comic book characters

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In recent years, mainstream comic book publishers have portrayed more of their characters, both protagonists and supporting, as being gay or bisexual. Both male and female gay comic book characters are represented, as are imaginary persons from all walks of life, economic, social, and ethnic.

Contents

Public reaction

While it may be too early to tell how the public in general and comic book fans in particular will react to these publishers' focus on homosexuality, one thing seems certain: the political, social, and cultural landscape appears to be such that it supports at least a trial effort in developing comics featuring gays, lesbians, bisexuals, and transgendered characters. Whereas only a few decades ago, comics would likely have lost their approval by the Comics Code Authority for including gay characters of any kind in any comic for any reason, no one seems to be suggesting that the comics, in highlighting gay characters, has done anything to warrant disapproval, social or otherwise.

Rawhide Kid

In 2002, Marvel Comics revived The Rawhide Kid, introducing the first openly gay comic book character to star in his own magazine. the Western gunfighter is the first main character among Marvel’s comic book cast to be homosexual. The first edition of the Rawhide Kid’s gay saga was called Slap Leather.

Writer and artist
According to a CNN.com article, “The new series pairs the original artist, John Severin, now 86, with Ron Zimmerman, a writer for the Howard Stern Show. Making the Rawhide Kid homosexual was Zimmerman’s idea."[[Citing sources citation needed]]

Indirect portrayal of character's sexuality
The character’s sexuality is conveyed indirectly, through euphemisms and puns, and the comic’s style is campy. For example, the Rawhide Kid says, of the Lone Ranger: "I think that mask and the powder blue outfit are fantastic. I can certainly see why the Indian follows him around."

Humorous asides
According to a CBS News story concerning the character, “Part of the comedic slant will come in the Rawhide Kid's asides to the reader after the townsfolk can't quite figure out what makes the gunslinger ... different. In his previous incarnation, the Rawhide Kid was very shy around women. Nothing about that will change in the new version.”

Northstar

The Rawhide Kid was preceded by other gay Marvel characters, such as Alpha Flight’s Northstar.

Alpha Flight membership
A member of the original Alpha Flight, Northstar came out as being gay in 1992's Alpha Flight issue 106. However, in his later appearances, Northstar's homosexuality was downplayed, and it was suggested that he might be bisexual [link].

Implied homosexuality
Northstar's sexual identity was hinted at in issues 7 and 8 of Alpha Flight. He and his sister Aurora visit Raymonde Belmonde, a friend of Northstar's. After Aurora leaves, Belmonde asks Northstar, "So, you didn't tell her all about me." When, later, Northstar meets Belmonde's daughter, the superhero is astonished to learn that his friend is a father.

Moreover, Belmonde tells Jean-Paul Beaubier (Northstar's alter ego) not to fear his mutant powers or anything else, and Aurora chastises her brother for questioning her romantic choices by remarking, "You, of all people, dare to challenge my love life?"

Finally, in Alpha Flight, which explains the character's origin, Northstar's apparent lack of interest in women is chalked up to his obsessive drive to win as a ski champion [link].

Other gay Marvel characters

In addition to the Rawhide Kid and Northstar, these other Marvel comic book characters are also homosexual:

Hector
A member of the Pantheon, a super-powerful clan similar to classical Greco-Roman deities who also use advanced technology against their enemies, Hector debuted in The Incredible Hulk. His sexuality was an occasional topic among his colleagues, and one of his brothers disapproved of his homosexuality. During a wedding party, Hector was observed chatting with another gay character, Northstar [link].

Mystique
Mystique is depicted as being bisexual and once had a lesbian lover, Destiny, who is now deceased.

Vivisector and Phat
These characters were members of the X-Force.

Amy Chen
A former mercenary and assassin, Amy Chen is now a member of Silver Sable's Wild Pack. According to Gregory Wright, the character's creator, "Amy Chen's sexual orientation. . . was never explicitly said in print, but numerous references were planted in my stories. Yes, as far as I'm concerned--and that's all that counts since I created her--she is lesbian, or possibly bi. The reason she was never officially outed had nothing to do with Marvel policy as some have speculated. It was simply a matter of it not being relevant to any of the stories written" [link].

Bloke
Bloke is a member of X-Statix, which was originally X-Force.

Jennifer Kale
Jennifer Kale is a bi-sexual witch in the Marvel Universe who has been shown to date both men and women. In the Witches series the character Satana Hellstrom was able to reveal that Jennifer was staring at her chest while at the same time telling Satana that her preference was none of her business.

Wiccan and Hulkling
The two members of Young Avengers are among the first openly gay superhero couples.

Gay DC characters

DC Comics also includes several gay characters among its ensemble:

Gay characters in Malibu comics

Malibu Comics features these gay characters:

Gay characters in Dark Horse comics

Other mainstream gay comic book characters include Dark Horse's Heartbreakers.

Gay fanzine and parody art

Fans have also created artwork that depicts heterosexual Marvel and DC comic book characters as being gay. Other, similar art is designed to parody these characters. Among the heterosexual characters so represented in fan art are:

Transgendered superheroes

A few mainstream comic books have also introduced transgendered characters.

Shade, the Changing Woman
Although a mutant, like the X-Men, Shade’s super powers result not in superhuman fighting abilities but in a sex change that allows opportunities for humorous, ironic, sometimes satirical, social and political commentary. Among other themes, this comic book dealt with a man's becoming aware of, and sensitive to, the challenges and issues that a woman faces due to her own femininity, sexism, chauvinism, and life in general in a patriarchic society: she must learn to "deal with female clothing and men's advances. There is a more than passing reference to dealing with PMS, the 'heroine' has sex with the first man she comes across, and there is even the obligatory urinal joke" [link].

Awakening as a female one morning, Shade is first horrified by her transformation. However, with the help of her female friends, she meets these and other challenges, experiences her first kiss and her first sexual encounter with a man, and must make the ultimate decision as to whether to become a man again. Later in the series, “Shade's son George is put into the body of Lenny's daughter, Lilly” [link].

Mantra
On a 1994 Ultraverse trading card, Mantra's creator, Mike Barr, provides this information concerning his creation: ""Mantra is a man, he just has a woman's body. It was from this dichotomy that Mantra sprang. From the major theme--a switch in genders--came the minor theme of the series: a warrior who must become a sorcerer, a slayer who must become a nurturing mother, a man who has died hundreds of times must become a woman who can only die once. That's the conundrum--and appeal--of Mantra" [link]. A Malibu Comics title, Mantra recounts how a warrior was reincarnated into a female fighter's body. After Marvel Comics bought Malibu, Mantra was retired.

Babewatch

In 1995, Image comics sought to profit from the "'bad girl' trend in comics. . . by briefly turning many of their male heroes into women." This series was initiated in Youngblood, when "Glory's nemesis Diablolique takes revenge on Glory (and men in general) by turning every man Glory had ever met into a woman" [link].

Among the comic book characters to undergo this transformation were the males in the following comic book titles:

Sasquatch ("Wanda" Langkowski)
Again, as a result of a complex series of transfers between male and female bodies, Sasquatch is reborn, if only temporarily, as Wanda Langkowski in Alpha Flight issues 45 through 68. In the series Exiles, Heather Hudson also serves as a female host for Sasquqtch.

Sir Tristan
When Merlin casts a spell to bring King Arthur's knights back, the members of the Round Table take up residence in individuals around the world, with the spirit of Sir Tristan inhabiting a female body, causing the usual crises and problems associated with such transformations.

Flare and the Champions
This series, which was based on the Champions superhero roleplaying game, included transgendered plots in which body possession and shapeshifting abilities were used to set up male-to-female transformations with Dr, Arcane entering Dark Malice's body and Flare's brother Philip uses his shapeshifting abilities to impersonate her so as to avenge himself upon his sister who, earlier, had forced him to pose as a girl.

Excalibur
Through the use of shapeshifting abilities and various other machinations of plot, several of the characters in the Excalibur series also swap bodies or are otherwise transformed into members of the opposite sex, including:

Hawkwoman and Hawkman
As a result of Count Viper's exercise of his tremendous psychic powers, Hawkwoman and Hawkman both switch bodies with others of the opposite sex, the count using them to advance his own nefarious schemes.

Lusiphur
When Lusiphur is trapped by his foes, a sorceress offers to help him, whereupon she casts a love spell on him. However, the spell goes wrong, transforming Lusiphur into "Lucy."

Superman
In an issue of the series Whom Gods Destroy, Superman is transformed into a woman to make amends for the unwitting crimes he has committed against those of the opposite sex.

Jimmy Olsen

Although he is not himself a superhero, Superman's pal, The Daily Planet's "cub reporter," Jimmy Olsen, has been a frequent crossdresser over the years that he has appeared in Superman comic books. Once, after quitting his job, he disguised himself as a female, Leslie Lowe, to botch tasks so badly that his former employer Perry White would leap at the chance to rehire him.

In another comic, Jimmy takes on sexism by posing as a female fan of his own fan club.

When Jimmy poses as a woman to accomplish some undercover detective work, he attracts the unwanted attentions of one of the male gangsters he's keeping under surveillance.

Jimmy also dons ladies' clothing to evade the police.

Gambit
Once again, due to a villain's shapeshifting abilities, another superhero--Gambit, of the X-Men, this time--is trapped in the body of a member of the opposite sex.

Thor
At Loki's suggestion, to teach his son a lesson in humilty, Odin transforms Marvel Comics' thunder god into a female deity, Thor becoming, literally, a diva.

Other storylines in which Thor swaps sex are the results of the discovery of the mystic hammer that normally transforms Blake into Thor by the girlfriend of Don Blake (Thor's alter ego) and of the female X-Men character Rogue's inheriting Thor's powers. Both of these stories are part of Marvel's "What If" series.

Coagula
Kate Godwin, a male-to-female transexual, was one of the first transexual characters to have a major role in a comic series. She was a member of the Doom Patrol, and had the ability to coagulate liquids and dissolve solids at will.

Shvaugn Erin
A female Science Police officer, Shvaugn Erin took a sex-change drug because he was in love with Element Lad.

Cloud
Cloud, who was able to take the form of a female, a male, or a cloud, appeared in a revival of The Defenders. The character could take on male or female form. Romantically attracted to the female Cloud, Iceman was upset by her male form.

Other transgendered superheroes
These other superheroes also are (or have briefly been) transgendered superheroes:

Means of transformation
In comic books that include male-to-female or female-to-male transformations, the characters undergo these transformations as a result of a variety of causes, including:

See also

External links

 

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